The IBM Open Systems Adapter (OSA) is a hardware element that interfaces between an IBM S/390 or zSeries processor and a network, which may be a private network within an enterprise, a public network, or a combination of both. References that describe the Open Systems Adapter include the following patents, patent applications and publications, incorporated herein by reference; U.S. Pat. No. 6,772,221, Ratcliff et al., “Dynamically configuring and monitoring hosts connected in a computing network having a gateway device”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,600,743, Lee et ah, “IP multicast interface”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,490,285, Lee et ah, “IP multicast interface”
U.S. Pat. No. 6,389,027, Lee et al., “IP multicast interface”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,327,621. Lee et al., “Method for shared multicast interface in a multi-partition environment”; U.S. Pat. No. 6,185,218, Ratcliff et al., “Communication method and apparatus for use in a computing network environment having high performance LAN connections”; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,084,859, Ratcliff et al, “Internet Protocol assists using multi-path channel protocol”.
In many communications error scenarios associated with server and network communications, it is not always clear if the source of the problem is a software (e.g. Operating Systems) or hardware (e.g. network adapter) error. Often the external symptoms of the problem may not reveal the root source of the problem. When this occurs, both software and hardware documentation (traces and dumps) must be collected. This process is often referred to as “Problem Determination”. Problem determination is the process of isolating the source of the problem to a specific product (most often hardware vs. software).
Although each product (software and hardware) has tools that provide data collection, what is missing is the ability to capture both hardware and software traces at the same time for the same instance of an error. This deficiency causes many problems recreating attempts and in some field situations can lead to customer satisfactions issues.
Most Operating Systems have a set of tools that allows a trap to be set to capture software traces and/or dumps based on specific events. For example, in z/OS, this type of tool is the MVS SLIP command, or in CommServer the INOPDUMP command. Today network adapter (e.g. OSA) traces must be manually controlled (started and stopped) by a systems operator using the HMC.
What is needed is the ability to tie the software and hardware trace collection process together.